VA SHORE: Speaker warns of abandoning Virginia Inside Passage

Oct. 17, 2013

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Staff Writer

EASTVILLE — Northampton and Accomack counties should to organize themselves to secure waterways funding for dredging and aids to navigation, says Wachapreague resident and Town Council member John Joeckel.

The Coast Guard has proposed discontinuing 135 navigational aids along the Virginia Inside Passage, the seaside waterway between the peninsula and barrier islands.

“The proposed disestablishment is due to encroaching shoaling conditions, limited surveys and a lack of funds to dredge the passage,” reads a Coast Guard notice seeking comment on the proposal.

Said Joeckel, “Wachapreague lives and dies with our waterways and the tourists and fishermen who come into our town.”

Joeckel proposed a local waterways board to the Northampton County Board of Supervisors at its Oct. 8 meeting. He had previously pitched the idea to supervisors in Accomack County.

“We on the Eastern Shore are not sufficiently engaged in trying to get funding for our waterways,” he said.

According to Joeckel, the first step is maintaining the navigational aids on the Virginia Inside Passage.

“Once we lose those, we will never have dredging in the Inside Passage again,” he said.

A locally appointed waterways board could then develop a plan for the on-going maintenance of Eastern Shore waterways. The plan would serve as a benchmark of current conditions and needs.

“Every waterway would have a 10-year plan for everything that needs to be done,” Joeckel said, including year-by-year recommendations for dredging and maintenance.

The board would also quantify economic activity attributable to the waterways, which, along with environmental justification, would be used to lobby Congress for funding.

Mark Anderson, a project manager in the Army Corps of Engineers’ Norfolk office, saw advantages to a coordinated waterways effort on the Shore.

“With limited federal funding to support the navigation mission and dredging needs, it is extremely useful to have one voice of priorities,” he said.

Joeckel contends that only a fraction of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund is appropriated, with the balance used to mask the federal debt.

Effective lobbying of the Congressional committees that decide which projects will be funded could secure the estimated $5 million needed annually to maintain Eastern Shore waterways, Joeckel said.

“The money goes to the persons and the entities that fight for it,” he said.